"High altar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... middle of the choir, and just before the high altar, the body of the Conqueror was entombed with great pomp; and a monument erected to his memory of the most elaborate and costly description. Nothing now remains but a flat black marble slab, with a short inscription, of quite ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the silence, the bent figures dimly seen in the faint yellow light of a few tapers, make up a weird scene all the morning till about nine o'clock, when the relic, in its 'chasse,' or tabernacle, is carried to the Cathedral of St. Sauveur, and placed on the high altar, while a pontifical Mass is celebrated by one of the Bishops. When that is done, the procession starts on its march along the chief thoroughfares of the town. The houses are decorated with flags, and candles burn in almost every window. Through the narrow streets, between crowds of people ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... magnetic attraction. She went in among the gay-looking crowd—the old women in wondrous caps, the sprinkling of soldiers, the prosperous citizens and citizenesses in their Sunday splendour—and made her way to a quiet corner remote from the great carved-oak pulpit and the high altar—a shadowy corner behind a massive cluster of columns, and near a little wooden door in one of the great portals, that opened and shut with a clanging noise now and then, and beside which a dilapidated-looking old man kept watch over a shell-shaped marble ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... to Rome in vain, St. Peter had promised his cure if the King would, on his own royal neck, carry him to the Monastery. The King immediately consented; and, amidst the scoffs of the court, bore the poor man to the steps of the High Altar. There the cripple was received by Godric the sacristan, and walked away on his own restored feet, hanging his stool on the wall ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... you, hush, my sister!" said the porter, opening a door which led into the great church, "the brethren will be presently here to celebrate their election with a solemn mass—I must marshal them the way to the high altar—all the offices of this venerable house have now devolved on ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... it again renewed, in the same way. The Pope and his cortege disappeared behind the Confession, behind the High Altar, and presently, Lucy, craning her neck to the right, could see dimly in the furthest distance, against the apse, and under the chair of St. Peter, the chair of Leo XIII. and the white shadow, motionless, erect, within it, amid a court of cardinals and diplomats. As for ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... commeth in to you. With trembling steps, and humble reverence, She commeth in, before th' Almighties view; Of her ye virgins learne obedience, When so ye come into those holy places, To humble your proud faces: Bring her up to th' high altar, that she may The sacred ceremonies there partake, The which do endlesse matrimony make; And let the roring Organs loudly play The praises of the Lord in lively notes; The whiles, with hollow throates, The Choristers the joyous Antheme ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... matters of and pertaining to idolatry. The carving on the reading-desk was damaged, and two fair screens of beautiful sculptured oak had been destroyed, for the same pithy and conclusive reason. The high altar had been removed, and the gilded railing, which was once around it, was broken down and carried off. The effigies of several tombs were mutilated, and now lay scattered ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... our imagination set the meagre form of Philip in his chair, or by the desk at which he used to write; examined the grim relics of his monk-like existence; and finally moved to the death-chamber, set like a stage-box at the theatre, beside the high altar of the chapel. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was lit up. The tapers were flaring on the high altar, and in the middle of the chapel, wrapped in a large black cloak, his face hidden by a black mask, stood a man, mysterious ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... you nor any one else can guess at that distance. If the whole congregation knelt down in adoration, the artistic effect would unquestionably be fine, but then not one person in seven does kneel, and therefore the effect is lost. So it is with the washing of the high altar. If one priest alone went up and poured the wine and oil over the sacred stone, and then cleansed the shrine from any spot or stain, the grandeur of the idea would not be marred by the monotony of the performance; but when some four hundred priests and choristers ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... Marechal. His name, as also that of his father, is among the signatories of Magna Charta, and he was a strenuous supporter of the barons against the King. Though he died in Brittany, his body was brought home and buried in Tewkesbury, at the foot of the steps leading up to the high altar. In a few months' time his widow, Isabelle, married Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of King Henry III. At her death she wished to be buried next to Gilbert de Clare, but as her husband objected to this, she bequeathed her ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... flame of love's high altar Trembles and sinks, and the sense of listening ears Heeds not the sound that it heard of love's blithe psalter Years ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... opened whilst I was standing on the steps which lead to it, and discovered the interior of the dome, where I expatiated in solitude; no mortal appearing except an old priest who trimmed the lamps, and muttered a prayer before the high altar, still wrapped in shadows. The sunbeams began to strike against the windows of the cupola just as I left the church, and was wafted across the waves to the spacious platform in front of St. Giorgio Maggiore, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... crestfallen (1214), and in no condition to resist demands at home. Late in the autumn the barons met in the abbey church of Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, under their leader, Robert Fitz-Walter, of London. Advancing one by one up the church to the high altar, they solemnly swore that they would oblige John to grant the new charter, or they would declare ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... not leave James Parsons without telling you of two whale's teeth which stand on his parlor mantel-piece; he ornamented them himself, copying the designs from cheap foreign prints. One of them is what he calls "the meeting-house." It is the high altar of the Cathedral of Seville. On the other is "the wild-beast tamer." A man with a feeble, wishy-washy expression holds by each hand a fierce, but subjugated tiger. His legs dangle loosely in the air. There is nothing to suggest what upholds him in ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... worthies, and images of the Saviour, the Virgin, and saints, were numerous everywhere about the church; and in the chancel there was a great deal of quaint and curious sculpture, fencing in the Holy of Holies, where the High Altar stands. There is not much painted glass; one or two very rich and beautiful rose-windows, however, that looked antique; and the great eastern window which, I think, is modern. The pavement has, probably, never ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and at her feet the remains of the cloth of gold and silk which Pope Paschal had found in her tomb." The reigning Pope, Clement VIII., ordered that the relics should be kept inviolate, and the coffin was enclosed in a silver shrine and replaced under the high altar, with great solemnity. A talented sculptor, Stefano Maderno, was commissioned to execute a marble statue of the saint lying dead, and this celebrated work, which fully corresponds with the description of Baronius, ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... around he saw that the cathedral was nearly empty: a priest was near the high altar, two boys were in the middle of the nave, by the chief entrance was a little group just preparing to leave. Nearer him, and close by the image, were two women. They were on their knees, and appeared to be absorbed in their devotions. It seemed to David that ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... great space for the shrine of the newly canonised St Thomas of Canterbury, to whose tomb already half Europe was flocking, the choir was built even longer than its predecessor. The great space provided for the shrine in the Trinity Chapel behind the choir and high altar opened on the east into a circular chapel known, perhaps on account of the relic it held, as Becket's Crown. Till 1220 when all was ready, the body of St Thomas lay in an iron coffin in the crypt, and the great feast and day of pilgrimage in his honour was the day of his martyrdom, December 29, ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... the organs pealed. Angelique and Felicien were there, walking with slow steps towards the high altar, between the closely-pressed ranks of the crowd. A breath of sincere, touching admiration came from every side. He, deeply moved, passed along proud and serious, with his blonde beauty of a young god appearing slighter than ever from his closely-fitting black dress-coat. But ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... treasures at the hands of pirates on the sea and of brigands upon land. But all toils and dangers were forgotten when, on the 24th of June 1205, at the head of the brotherhood of which he was the chief, Martin placed the relics purloined from the Pantokrator of Constantinople upon the high altar of the church of Parisis with a conqueror's pride and joy, while the people shouted, 'Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.' There ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... the incorporation of the provinces of Preutzen and Posen. The politicians of St. Petersburgh know that the Russian people, living on in animal dulness, are susceptible of no other intellectual impression except a religious one; and so without reflection, the cross is torn from the high altar, and used as a military signal. Religion was employed as a pretext, in order to lead the unhappy Poles step by step into ruin; and Russia was just so employed in Turkey, when the 'heathen' undertook to disturb her in her Christian ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... first painting we can discover which shows any sign of independent effort is the series which Paolo da Venezia painted on the back of the Pala d' Oro, over the high altar of St. Mark, when it was restored in the fourteenth century. This reveals an artist with some pictorial aptitude and one alive to the subjects that surround him. It tells the story of St. Mark's corpse transported to Venice. The first panel contains ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... foundation of this monastic institution are remarkable. It was founded and endowed by William the Lion, King of Scots, in the year 1178, and dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, the martyr of the principle of ecclesiastical supremacy, whose slaughter at the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral occurred in 1170, and who was canonized in 1173. This great establishment, richly endowed, was thus a magnificent piece of homage by the Scottish King to a principle which, especially under the bold and uncompromising guidance ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... and next day to the Tower. Henry did not accompany him, but turned aside to enter the city by the chief gate. Proceeding along Cheapside to St. Paul's amidst the shouts of the people, he advanced in full armour to the high altar; and, having offered his devotions there, he turned to the tomb of his father and mother, at the sight of which he was deeply affected. He lodged the first five or six days in the Bishop's house; ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... choir. On each side of the altar is curious and elegant Gothic spire-work; and traces may be seen of ancient stone work, all that now remains of the high altar. The wooden altar-screen is described as "execrable enough"; but sixteen stalls in the choir, which are referred to the time of Henry VII., are ingeniously ornamented with "carved figures of illustrious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... discs and oblong panels of porphyry and green serpentine. In the nave of the small church sat in comfortable arm-chairs two monks, one black, one white, leaning their ears to gilded grates and receiving the confessions of the sisterhood. The paschal candlestick stood in front of the high altar,—Ascension-Day not being past; but here, as in other Sicilian churches, it assumes the form of a seven-branched tree, generally of bronze bedecked with gold. These same nuns' balconies are not confined to the interior of churches, but form a distinct and picturesque ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... o'clock at night. He died as an apostle, after having done his whole duty as religious and bishop. Great was the concourse of people, for his great sagacity and prudence made him not only liked but loved by all. He was buried in our convent, at the foot of the high altar, among the religious. Beyond doubt our Lord chose to snatch him from this life on that day which he so much venerated, so that he should see the reward which the Lord gave him for so great devotion. He was a liberal almsgiver, and at the time of his death had nothing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... back to the tenth and eleventh centuries, and portions of the materials used in its construction have been brought from almost every country in Europe. The ceiling of the interior is richly adorned with mosaics in the form of various noted paintings. Behind the High Altar repose the remains of St. Mark, while further back stand four spiral columns said to have belonged to the Temple of Solomon. The building to the right is the ...
— Shepp's Photographs of the World • James W. Shepp
... purpose of keeping their wives and daughters from contact with the populace. The latter, swaying back and forth at the rear of the nave, with a noise like that of a rising surf, broke out into joyous acclamations as the archbishop was seen to come in. That dignitary seated himself near the high altar under a scarlet canopy, surrounded by his attendants, and ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... into all hearts, and in whose hands alone must rest our vengeance — He will surely repay you for the sorrows that your wickedness has caused. Go, Roderic MacAlpin. Go, ere it is too late, and before the high altar of St. Blane's pray to Him for the mercy and forgiveness that you ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... or two ago, had it lighted up with tapers. I subjoin a few passages from a letter I received at the time from him;—"Yesterday, being Valentine's day, in the evening I went to vespers, and had six tapers burning at the high altar in the abbey; also several in each of the (eight) confessionals, holy water, fonts, shrines, and altars.—The church-yard, the abbey, were silent as the grave; you might have heard a pin drop; there was not a breath of air stirring, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... banner in hand, during the coronation of Charles VII, before the high altar at Rheims (page 347), Frontispiece Painting by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... down upon them from a golden twilight. They passed thus into the sacristy, where with all solemnity and composure they arrayed their Father and Superior for the last time in his sacramental robes, and then, still chanting, followed him to the high altar,—where all bowed in prayer. And still, whenever there was a pause in the stormy uproar and fiendish clamor, might be heard the clear, plaintive uprising of that strange singing,—"O Lord, save thy people, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... the shrine, the king and queen took their seats on each side of the high altar, and then there came forth a procession of priests and bishops, clothed in magnificent sacerdotal robes made of cloth of gold, and chanting solemn hymns of prayer and praise as ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... serpent metamorphosed into stones. When Mr. Copinger, a gentleman drawn thither by the fame of the place, visited it, there was a church covered with shingles dedicated to St. Patrick, and it was thus furnished: at the east end was a high altar covered with linen, over which did hang the image of our Lady with our Saviour in her arms; on the right did hang the picture of the three kings offering their presents to our Saviour; and on the left the picture of our Saviour on the cross; near the altar, and on the ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... magnificence struck us with amazement. Its gold and silver and jewels, its innumerable ornaments and holy vessels, the rich dresses of the priests, all seemed burning in almost intolerable brightness. The high altar was the most magnificent; the second, with its pure white marble pillars, the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... lies buried in the cathedral of the Havannah, close to the wall near the high altar. On the tomb ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... such matters was lax both in the world and also in the church. It came as a surprise to his contemporaries that he should disapprove of the romantic ties between King Henry and fair Rosamond. That lady was buried at Godstowe by her royal lover, who draped her tomb, near the high altar, with silk, lamps, and lighted candles, making her the new founder, and for her sake raising the house from poverty and meanness to wealth and nobleness of building. While Hugh was earnestly praying at the altar (in 1191) he espied this splendid sepulchre. He asked whose ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... ordered that the troops of King James should be admitted when the thirteen Prentice Boys closed the gate on the very nose of his army." I saw the two white standards taken from the Catholic troops flanking the high altar of the Cathedral; which also contains the grandly-carved case of an organ taken from a wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588, just a century before the siege. The people have ever before them these warlike spoils, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... mantles of the three priests ceased to gleam before the high altar, and another priest in black and white appeared in the pulpit, Ulysses would turn his glance toward a side chapel. The sermon always represented for him a half hour of somnolence, peopled with his own lively ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the church St. Lorenzo in Lucina in the Corso—and look attentively at it—so as to describe it to me on your return. The general arrangement of the building, if with a nave—pillars or not—the number of altars, and any particularity there may be—over the High Altar is a famous Crucifixion by Guido. It will be of great use to me. I don't care ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... mosque, with coloured pillars, and a "mirhab," which I still see in my mind's eye, full of long-robed and turbaned Mussulmans, plunged in solemn meditation. With the Christian conquest, the mosque became a Christian church, and the mirhab in its centre the high altar. After the Moors came the Templars, and then the Knights of Christ, who bravely defended the convent against an attempted Moorish recapture. A gate is still shown, called the "Gate of blood" on account of the carnage ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... the transept are decorated with open parapets; and at the east end, below a rose window remarkable for its tracery, an arched niche protects the water of the fountain of Soloman the idiot: the actual spring itself being beneath the high altar. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... from? He was distinctly conscious of having seen it fall through the air, close to his feet. He glanced up at the dark ceiling of the chapel; then he turned and looked about the church. There was only one figure in it, that of a man who knelt near the high altar. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... and was separated from the nave by a screen, with a parish-altar on its western side for public worship, while the chancel was reserved for the monastic services, with a raised presbytery for the high altar at its eastern end—a threefold division providing for the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... occasionally felt some compassion for the desperate fellows who thus immolated themselves on the High Altar of her perfections, though it must be admitted that he received the news of their deaths with tolerable equanimity, knowing them to have been fools, and as such, better out of the world than in it. During the first two or three years ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... [writes Mikuli], Chopin made great demands on the talent and diligence of the pupil. Consequently, there were often des lecons orageuses, as it was called in the school idiom, and many a beautiful eye left the high altar of the Cite d'Orleans, Rue St. Lazare, bedewed with tears, without, on that account, ever bearing the dearly-beloved master the least grudge. For was not the severity which was not easily satisfied with anything, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... her seat in the confessional to a young peasant woman who looked contrite and anxious, Mrs. Tiralla repeated the prescribed prayers before the high altar, ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... The gentlemen sat in the benches, having hitched their trousers slightly above their knees and laid their hats in security. They sat well back and gazed formally at the distant speck of red light which was suspended before the high altar. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... 10 feet thick, 25 feet in circumference, and 18 feet in height.[1] The belfry was placed over the centre of the church, at an elevation of 105 feet, and was supported by the eight lofty pillars above mentioned. The roof over the high altar was 93 feet high. Its walls were 10 feet thick. On the right side of the high altar was a vault supported by four pillars, and from this recess branched out five chapels that were bounded by a wall 70 yards long. A higher vault supported by ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... is of beaten earth; the Stations upon the walls of the rudest description; the narrow windows but dimly light the interior, and rather add to than dispel the gloom that has been gathering there for ages. The high altar is, of course, in striking contrast with all that dark interior: it is over-decorated in the Mexican manner—flowers, feathers, tinsel ornaments, tall candlesticks elaborately gilded; all the statues examples of the primitive art ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... brings fascination. Strahov, its many windows severely closed and reflecting a sullen sky, seems to stand out more austerely from among the gaunt tree-trunks, their grey and sombre outlines broken by a fantasia of gnarled and twisted branches glittering under snow. But within those walls, in the high altar's mysterious depth, in the long bare corridors and tiny cells where useful work continues as it has done for centuries, there is ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... of the cathedral, and a corner of the graveyard. She walked up the pathway between the tombs and pushed open the heavy church door. The cathedral nave was dark. Wilhelmine peered about and, thinking there was no one in the church, turned to go, when from the organ, far away near the high altar (or where the high altar had been before Protestant fury had torn it down), came a whisper like the awakening of the cathedral's soul; a long-drawn note which grew stronger and fuller, filling the whole building with a pulse ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... filled to overflowing. From north and south, from mountain and valley, all of note in the three kingdoms had flocked thither on this day to behold the imposing spectacle. Gustaf Trolle, now once more archbishop, stood at the high altar, lined on either side by the six Swedish bishops and the Upsala Chapter. The whole chancel was one blaze of gold and silver; and as the king marched through the main aisle with his splendid retinue, every eye was bent upon him and every whisper hushed. ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... says that after the news came of the Regent's perfidy, and after a sermon "vehement against idolatry," a priest began to celebrate, and "opened a glorious tabernacle" on the high altar. "Certain godly men and a young boy" were standing near; they all, or the boy alone (the sentence may be read either way), cried that this was intolerable. The priest struck the boy, who "took up a stone" and hit the ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its fall, and because science has written over the high altar its mene, mene, tekel, upharsin, the old words destined to be the epitaph ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... him. When he appeared in the hall where the abbot was, he displayed two marvellous caskets, which, from that time, no workman has surpassed in any place of the Christian world, and which were called "the vow of perseverance in love." These two treasures are, as every one knows, placed on the high altar of the church; and are judged to be of inestimable workmanship, since the goldsmith had expended all he had ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... Lammas Day and a solemn feast. All Malbank was in the nave, a beaten and weather-scarred bundle of drabs packed in one corner under the great vaulting ribs. Within the dark aisles the chapels gloomed, here and there a red lamp made darkness darker; but the high altar was a blaze of lights. The faces, scared or sharp-set, of the worshippers fronted the glory open-mouthed, but all dull. Hunger makes a bad altar-flame; when it burns not sootily it ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... which unbelievers talk so much about. But how was it? Were the people without a religious nature? Could they think more freely? Were they in any sense better off? No, they "followed the prostitute into the church of 'Notre Dame' in a grand procession and seated her upon the high altar, where she was worshiped by the audience." This was the result of the labors of all the authors to which I have called your attention. It was a wonderful gain? In all the public cemeteries this inscription was read: "Death is an ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various
... did not whip myself. A more extraordinary thing (for sight it can't be called) I never witnessed. I don't think the people stripped, nor, if they did, that the cords could have hurt them much. From thence to St. Peter's, where we found the quarant' ore and the high altar illuminated with heaps of candles. Only a few lights scattered at a great distance through the rest of the church, very few people there; but the dim light, the deep shades, the vast space, and the profound stillness were ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... which had been thrice reiterated in his sleep with a dreadful menace, if he presumed to suppress the commands of Heaven. "At Antioch," said the apostle, "in the church of my brother St. Peter, near the high altar, is concealed the steel head of the lance that pierced the side of our Redeemer. In three days that instrument of eternal, and now of temporal, salvation, will be manifested to his disciples. Search, and ye shall find: bear it aloft in battle; and that mystic weapon shall ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... since, in France, in the Revolution, the leading men, the 'flower' of that capricious nation, carried in triumph in grand procession the most beautiful harlot of Paris, to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and, unveiling and kissing her before the high altar, proclaimed her as the 'Goddess of Reason,' exhorting the multitude of people to forget all the childish things that they had been taught as to the thunders of the wrath of God, for God was ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... was a fine place to receive one's friends; it was not the tiny workshop now in fashion, but a big, roomy place, where the homemaker sacrificed to the household gods, with the stove a sort of shining high altar in the center, and the incense from the merry kettle curling up ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... have his remains taken to Lindisfarne, after making the monks promise that, if ever the monastery should be removed, his bones should be taken away also. His body was placed in a coffin of stone, and he was buried near the high altar of the Lindisfarne Cathedral. ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... a small one, with nave and transept as usual, and in the Italian Gothic style. At the end of the nave stood the high altar, which was now illuminated with wax-candles, while priests officiated before it. At the right extremity of the transact was the organ-loft, a somewhat unusual position; while at the opposite end of the transept was a smaller door. The church was moderately filled. ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... As soon then as he reached the west door of St. Paul's Cathedral, the Protector lifted the child King from his mother's chair, and set him on his feet, whilst the Duke of Exeter, on the other side, conducted him between them to the high altar up the stairs which led to the choir. At the altar the royal boy knelt for a time upon a low bench prepared for him, and was seen to look gravely and sadly on all around him. He was then led into ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... columns, doric and ionic, surmounted by a pediment with a bas-relief representing Religion, terminating with a cross. The interior is decorated with corinthian pilasters, the effect is altogether fine, the high altar is of white marble, and some of the pictures are extremely good; the nobility attend much at this church, and it is rather famed for its preachers. The Musee d'Artillerie is adjoining, and contains the armour worn from the earliest ages, as also the weapons which ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... founder of the old church, and the heart of a knight who was killed in the wars. On the Fane tomb is a pedigree of brass in relief, and a genealogy of virtues to answer it. There is an entire window of painted-glass arms, chiefly modern, in the chapel, and another over the high altar. The hospitality of the house was truly Gothic; for they made our postilion drunk, and he overturned us close to a water and the bank did but just save us from being in the middle of it. Pray, whenever you travel in Kentish roads, take care of keeping ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the spring of the second year I was at Trondenaes, that one midday, being under the influence of one of these unhealthy moods, I sat in the church on a raised place near the high altar, meditating, with Susanna's blue cross in ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... of July, 1054, they appeared in the church of St. Sophia at the beginning of divine service, and declared solemnly that all their endeavors to re-establish peace and union had been defeated by Cerularius. They then laid the bull of excommunication on the high altar and left the church, shaking, as they did so, the dust from off their feet, and exclaiming in the deepest grief, "God sees it; He will judge." Thus was the unhappy schism between the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... the first aisle of the building to its eastern extremity, then right across it, past the great eastern door, up the fourth aisle, down the third, and up the second, which brought them finally to the altar which stood on the right of the main or high altar, as looked at from Escombe's point of view. Then, while the priests continued their chanting, the flower-laden youths piled their fragrant burdens upon the right-hand altar and twined them about it until it was completely hidden from view by the vari-coloured blooms and their delicate ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... Sacristan. Britons do this division sum in their heads, check it as correct, and evidently feel increased respect for RUBENS as capable-for an artist—of driving a good bargain. "RUBENS baint him ven he vas seexteen," which younger Briton considers "very creditable to him, too!" They inspect the High Altar, with more clucks, and inform one another, with the air of Protestants who are above prejudice, that it's a marvellous piece o' work, though, mind yer! Sacristan points out holes underneath choir-stalls. "De organ is blay over ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... residence of Lord Byron, and his furniture is kept" [in his private rooms] "just as he left it. His character does not shine. It appears to have been horrid.... He made a drinking cup of a monk's skull found under the high altar, with profane verses on the silver setting, and kept his wine in the stone coffin. These Mrs. Webb buried, and all the bones she could find that had been desecrated ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Clouds of incense rise continually from the perforations round the edge, and a black-toothed woman who keeps it burning is perpetually receiving small coins from the worshippers, who then pass on to the front of the altar to pray. The high altar, and indeed all that I should regard as properly the temple, are protected by a screen of coarsely-netted iron wire. This holy of holies is full of shrines and gods, gigantic candlesticks, colossal lotuses of gilded silver, offerings, lamps, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... their posterity [y]. The barons, inflamed by his eloquence, incited by the sense of their own wrongs, and encouraged by the appearance of their power and numbers, solemnly took an oath, before the high altar, to adhere to each other, to insist on their demands, and to make endless war on the king, till he should submit to grant them [z]. They agreed that, after the festival of Christmas, they would prefer in a body their common petition; and, in the ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... of rosy steam rising around them. Writhing serpents spout leaping gas flames on the altars set around the pool of the Ages, and from other altars set by the entrances of the Court rise clouds of steam given the semblance of flame by concealed red lights. By the high altar on the Tower of Ages the same device is used to make the lights ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... put to the sword by barbarous Moors, on the twenty-third day of October, two hundred and thirty-eight. Their bones are piled in the vaults, and many of their skulls are in the church. St. Ursel's is in a thin golden case, and stands on the high altar, but shown to humble ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... in gondola or bark glanced carelessly into the depth of the open window space framed between those polished marble shafts, for the familiar vision of a wonderful young face, beautiful as a Madonna from some high altar in Venice; often, too, this vision of a maiden bent above a child, with rare golden hair and great ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... liked it. I know nothing more elegant or more solemn than the entrance of a bridal party into the Madeleine, but we shall have to be content with Saint-Augustin. Still, the toilettes, as they pass up the aisle, even there, are very effective, and the decoration of the tall, high altar is magnificent. Toc! Toc! First come the beadles with their halberds, then the loud notes of the organ, then the wide doors are thrown open, making a noise as they turn on their great hinges, letting the noise of carriages outside be heard in the church; and then comes the bride in ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... accompanied with fine music, culminates on the Saturday morning—i.e. in the interval between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection—in a spectacle similar to that described in Ceylon. A rich velvet-black curtain hangs before the High Altar. At the appropriate moment and as the very emotional strains of voices and instruments reach their climax in the "Gloria in Excelsis," the curtain with a sudden burst of sound (thunder and the ringing of all the bells) is rent asunder, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... high altar young Maud stands arrayed: With accents that falter her promise is made— From father and mother for ever to part, For him and no other ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... that highest symbol which forms the proper principle of unity, and the living central point of Christianity, is perceived to possess this character, that it is at once the sign and the thing signified. For now, that on the high altar of divine love the one great sacrifice has been accomplished for ever, and no flame more can rise from it save the inspiration of a pure God-united will, that solemn act by which the bond formed between the soul and God is from time to time revealed, can consist in nothing else than this—that here ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... Clovis was interred in it: his remains were afterwards removed into the middle of the choir, where they are covered with a modern monument of white marble, with an inscription. St. Clotilda was buried near the steps of the high altar in 545; but her name having been enrolled among the saints, her relics were enshrined, and are placed behind the high altar. Those of St. Alda, the companion of St. Genevieve, and of St. Ceraunus, bishop of Paris, are placed ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... forty-four feet in heighth, and as many in breadth; that it was covered with copper, which, with the brass nails of the portico, pope Urban VIII. took away, and converted into the four wreathed pillars that support the canopy of the high altar in the church of St. Peter, &c. The truth is, before the time of pope Alexander VII. the earth was so raised as to cover part of the temple, and there was a descent of some steps into the porch: but that pontiff ordered the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Pentapolis to the Pope for a perpetual possession. Thus the Pope became Lord of Ravenna, and the Exarchate, some few cities excepted; and the keys were sent to Rome, and laid upon the confession of St. Peter, that is, upon his tomb at the high Altar, in signum veri perpetuique dominii, sed pietate Regis gratuita, as the inscription of a coin of Pipin hath it. This was in the year of Christ 755. And henceforward the Popes being temporal Princes, left off in their Epistles and Bulls to note the years of the Greek ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... scholars reject this theory. It is assigned to Petrus de Monsoro (circa 1000) and to Adehemar, but the claims of both are doubtful. In 1220 the general chapter of Cluny ordered its daily chanting before the high altar, after the Capitulum. The use of the anthem at Compline was begun by the Dominicans about 1221 and the practice spread rapidly. It was introduced into the "modernised." Franciscan Breviary in the thirteenth century. The Carthusians sing it daily at Vespers; the Cistercians sing it after Compline, ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... delivered in his honour, to which he graciously replied in the same language. From the cross he was escorted to the cathedral, at the door of which he was received by the aged bishop, Dr. David Rothe. At the high altar he intonated the Te Deum, and gave the multitude the apostolic benediction. Then he was conducted to his lodgings, where he was soon waited upon by Lord Muskerry and General Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle, where, in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... invisible, inaudible, intangible force which slew at a breath, became invested with supernatural attributes; it was the spirit of a god that came and sat in the chair of death, now transformed into the high altar of his ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Holar. High altar in the center, and over it Christ on the Cross, an image of white alabaster, with bloody hands and feet and side, life-size. To either side, in the aisles, altars of the Virgin, splendid with images. On the floor ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... I say," replied the old man; "you know as much of the matter as myself. Beneath the high altar is a large stone slab or lid, which is said to cover the mouth of a profound well, at the bottom of which it is believed that the bones of the saint are interred; though why they should be placed at the bottom of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Aragon, the embattled castles of Castille, till they amounted to seventy-three. It must have been strange to the Spanish Queen to rejoice over these as they lay piled in a gorgeous heap before the high Altar, here and there one dim with weather or stained with blood. The peals of the Te Deum from a thousand voices were unspeakably magnificent, and yet through them all it seemed to me that I heard the wail not only of ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... place on the 22nd of June, and is, perhaps, the most solemn of these festivals. During its celebration the relic of the Saint, the little finger of his right hand, is held before the high altar of the church by an abbe clad in his surplice. The finger is wrapped in the finest of linen, and one by one the congregation files past the abbe for the purpose of touching for one brief moment the relic he holds. At the same time ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... to see the church, where we were met by the Prior at the door, with all the friars on both sides, who received us with great kindness and respect, and all the choir singing till we came up to the high altar; then all of them accompanied us to the Pantheon, which was, for that purpose, hung full of lights in the branches; there saw I the most glorious place for the covering of the bones of their Kings of Spain that is possible to imagine. I will ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... the Chapel of the Apparition," explained the guide, after leading us to another part of the church. "Here the Lord appeared to Mary, His mother, after the Resurrection. In a niche beside the high altar is a hole in the wall. If you hold your taper up to it you may see within the wall a part of the column to which the Savior was bound during the Flagellation. You may touch the sacred column with this round stick, provided for the purpose, if you wish to do so. The stick, being worn smooth ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... seized with illness, and died there on October 12 in the seventy-sixth year of his age. The body was placed on a car and carried in solemn procession to Ripon, where it was buried on the south side of the high altar in his ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... shocked at such profanity. Nay, even in the dire exigencies of war we do not think better of the Germans for having stabled their horses in one of the French churches and left their broken beer-bottles on the high altar and the refuse of a stable strewn up and down the nave. Yet a church is, after all, only a poor earthly building, built by human hands. But there is one temple which God has built for Himself, the temple of man's body; and ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... was held in November 1793,(588) in which an opera-dancer, impersonating Reason as a goddess, was introduced into the Convention, and then led in procession to the cathedral of Notre Dame; and there, elevated on the high altar, took the place of deity, and received adoration from the audience. The services of religion were abandoned; the churches were closed; the sabbath was abolished; and the calendar altered. On all the public cemeteries the inscription was placed, "Death is an eternal sleep." ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... church, mean, and of a date some thousand years subsequent to that of the Basilica. They are nearly ruinous, but are still—or were till within a few years—inhabited by one Capucin friar, and one lay brother of the order, whose duty it was to mutter a mass, with ague-chattering jaws, at the high altar, and act as ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... also in the same church erected to S. Helen, through which we go vp to the place where Christ was crucified: the stayres are fiftie steps high, there are two altars in it: before the high altar is the place where the crosse stood, the hole whereof is trimmed about with siluer, and the depth of it is halfe a mans arme deepe: the rent also of the mountaine is there to be seene in the creuis, wherein a man ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... Donatello's work surpasses these two bas-reliefs for harmonies of line and grouping, for choice of form, for beauty of expression, and for smoothness of surface-working. The marble is of great delicacy, and is wrought to a wax-like surface. At the high altar are three more fragments from the mutilated tomb. One is a long low frieze of children bearing garlands, which probably formed the base of Aragazzi's monument, and now serves for a predella. The remaining pieces are detached statues of Fortitude and Faith. The former ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... what happened. They had been there about an hour, and the moon was pouring down as clear as daylight from the high altar window; when, all at once, the letter upon the altar began to move about of itself, as if it were alive, then it hopped down upon the floor, from that danced down the altar steps, and so on all along the nave, though no human being laid hands on it the while, and not a breath or stir ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Leapers, this Thorgist, or Turgesius, seems to have hated the churches. Not content with burning them, and killing all priests and monks he could find, his wife, we are told, took possession of the High Altar at Clonmacnois, and used it as a throne from which to give audience, or to utter prophecies and incantations. He also exacted a tribute of "nose money," which if not paid entailed the forfeit of the feature it was called after. At last three or four of the tribes united by despair rose ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... the high altar is Edward the Confessor's Chapel containing the graves and monuments of nine kings and queens. In this chapel are the two Coronation Chairs upon which all the sovereigns of Great Britain have been crowned since the death of Henry III., (by ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... and other saints of their devotion, and then all the monks hastened to incorporate themselves with their respective orders in the place in which they severally stood. The procession, as soon as formed, directed itself to the Cathedral, where the consecrated wafer[4] was exposed upon the high altar, and to which all kneeled as they entered.... The services ended, the Virey was conducted to his lodgings by the first Alcalde, the magistrates of the town, and judges, who had descended from the capitol to receive him, besides the soldiers of the garrison ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... within its windows and belfry. Two ranges of broken columns told of the bygone glories of the aisles; and the beautiful side chapels having escaped injury better than other parts of the fabric, remained in tolerable preservation. But the choir and high altar were stripped of all their rich carving and ornaments, and the rain descended through the open rood-loft upon the now grass-grown graves of the abbots in the presbytery. Here and there the ramified mullions still ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... maestro de —, choir-master, one who composes and directs church music; — mayor, main chapel (containing the pulpit and high altar, and in most Spanish churches opposite the coro and separated from the transept ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... design as his work is, it is yet no Pagan temple enshrining a type of the human made divine by triumph of corporeal beauty; it is not a private chapel housing a single saint and dedicate to one chosen bloom of Christian piety or devotion; it is truly a cathedral, over whose high altar hangs the emblem of suffering, of the Divine made human to teach the beauty of adversity, the eternal presence of the spiritual, not overhanging and threatening, but informing and sustaining the material. In this cathedral of Dante's there are side-chapels as is fit, with altars to all Christian ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Elevation of the Cross. The Savior's face and figure are not to be forgotten by any one who carefully gazes on this canvas. Both these pictures were carried off by the French, and also the Assumption of the Virgin, which is the high altar-piece, and were restored by the allied sovereigns in 1815. This last-named picture is said to have been executed in sixteen days, and his pay was one hundred florins a day. I like it exceedingly; and the figure of the picture is more spiritual ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... while receiving the sacred unction from the prelate of the day, who sat in his chair at the high altar[45]: a deference to the priesthood which the kings of France retained to the period of the Revolution; and which the Roman Pontifical expressly requires. Since the Reformation our monarchs have also dispensed with ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... out into the garden. Don Calixto has the habit of taking an afternoon nap, and he left us. I succeeded in bringing myself to, in the open air. Don Calixto's wife showed me over an abandoned part of the house, in which there is an old kitchen as big as a cathedral, with a stone chimney like a high altar, with the arms of the Dukes of Castro. We chatted, I was very pleasant to the mother, courteous to the daughters, and coldly indifferent with the little niece. I was bored, after having exhausted all subjects of conversation, when Don Calixto reappeared and ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... them," said the King. "Give the harquebuss to one of these knaves—to Oliver—to any one. Now Our Lady of Embrun be praised! and silver shall be the screen that surrounds her high altar!" ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the art of a designer-engraver (ciseleur) in gold. For the town he made many beautiful pieces of work, notably the silver statue of St. Rombauld which decorated the high altar of the ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... the high altar is Edward the Confessor's Chapel containing the graves and monuments of nine kings and queens. In this chapel are the two Coronation Chairs upon which all the sovereigns of Great Britain have been crowned since the death of Henry III., (by whom ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... which is the law of laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this, our corporate realty and homage, that this our recognition of a signiory paramount—I had almost said this oblation of the state itself—as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed with modest splendour and unassuming state. For those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is as usefully employed as it can be in fomenting the luxury ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... ascribed to a fine biography of him in royal quarto, choicely printed, and dedicated to the King of Spain. This panegyric is a mere tissue of lies. Mengs was a great painter, and nothing else; and if he had only produced the splendid picture which hangs over the high altar of the chapel royal at Dresden, he would deserve eternal fame, though indeed he is indebted to the great Raphael for the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... elevators and prejudices, Carl knew that human girl as the symbol of man's yearning for union with the divine; he desired happiness for her with a devotion great as the passion in Galahad's heart when all night he knelt before the high altar. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... finding herself turned into an Italian peasant-girl, and at seeing Michael Angelo and Raphael, instead of Wharton and Esther, walk in at the side door, and proceed to paint her in celestial grandeur and beauty, as the new Madonna of the prairie, over the high altar. ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... a Danish pirate, who had plundered the church. At Worcester, likewise, it was asserted that the north doors of the cathedral had been covered with the skin of a person who had sacrilegiously robbed the high altar. The date of these doors appears to be the latter part of the fourteenth century, the north porch having been built about 1385. Dart, in his "History of the Abbey Church of St. Peter's, Westminster," 1723 (vol. i., book ii., p. 64), relates ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and leisurely by all those who were present, the Abbot and his ministers passed a clean sheet under the coffin, and collecting into it all the bones and holy dust, covered it with another sheet, and took it out, and laid it upon the high altar, with candles and torches on each side; and in this manner it remained there all day, till it was time to deposit it in the tomb. And all this while the choristers sung to the organ, and the organ responded. And when the ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... would doubt his sovereignty, or grudge him his full measure of worship? ... Not I, believe me!"—and carried away by the force of a resistless inward fervor, he threw himself once more at her feet—"See!—here do I pay my vows at Love's high altar!—heart's desire shall be the prayer—heart's ecstasy the praise! ... together we will celebrate our glad service of love, and heaven itself shall sanctify this Eve of St. Edris and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... may have terminated in an apse as at Peterborough, and possibly the tower. On October 17 in that year the remains of Saints Etheldreda, Sexburga, Ermenilda, and Withburga were solemnly removed to the new choir, and re-interred in front of the high altar. For some reason not explained there was no such attendance of high ecclesiastical dignitaries as was usual on such occasions. The Bishop of Norwich, four abbots, and one archdeacon were all that could be found to attend the translation. The account is noteworthy because ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... midnight drew near, and the mass was about to commence, a great number of candles were lighted on the high altar and in the side chapels, and the scene became more brilliant and animated. We looked down upon a perfect sea of heads, the women all wearing the national handkerchiefs, many of these of bright colours, and making them conspicuous among the men, of whom there were ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the roof of the church in a row of three lofty spires, with other lesser spires, growing out of each of them, as it is represented in the annexed draught.[15] This had now no Imagery-work upon it, or anything else that might justly give offence, and yet because it bore the name of the High Altar, was pulled all down with ropes, lay'd low and level with the ground." All the tombs were mutilated or hacked down. The hearse over the tomb of Queen Katherine was demolished, as well as the arms and escutcheons which still remained above the spot where Mary Queen of Scots had been buried. ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... got up from his bench and went up to the high altar. The human figure in the pulpit came down again, and went rapidly into hiding. Don Rocco turned around so as to stand in cornu epistolae, toward the empty benches, imagined them full of people, of his people ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... noon chimes had sounded and the church began to fill with noise from the shuffling feet of sacristans and the clatter of chairs being put back in place. The high altar was apparently being prepared ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... of Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew by name, presented himself before the chief and said that he had had a marvellous dream. St. Andrew had thrice appeared to him, saying, "Go into the church of my brother Peter at Antioch, and hard by the high altar thou wilt find, on digging up the ground, the head of the spear which pierced our Redeemer's side. That, carried in front of the army, will bring about the deliverance ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... crowd of fisher-folk and peasants. On entering the church, at the first sound of the bells booming over head, we found ourselves heavily pressed by the surging throng of worshippers, and it was only with difficulty we could obtain a sight of the ceremonies at the high altar, prominent upon which stood the silver bust of the Apostle containing the precious relics. It was a typical Italian festa. The chanting was harsh and discordant; the antiquated inharmonious organ emitted unexpected squeals, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... ill, I thought. She was thin, the color of the yellow wax candles of the high altar, and her straight nose, with expanded nostrils, and hard, almost savage mouth, features carved as with the stone chisel of her ancient tribe, conjured up the profile of Nenehofra, an Egyptian princess whose mummy I had seen. She was stern, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... mighty pillars, chipped and scarred, yet rose high in air, but its long aisles were choked with rubble and fallen masonry, while through the gaping rents of its lofty roof the rain fell, wetting the shattered heap of particoloured marble that had been the high altar once. Here and there, half buried in the debris at my feet, I saw fragments of memorial tablets, a battered corona, the twisted remains of a great candelabrum, and over and through this mournful ruin a cold and rising wind moaned fitfully. Silently ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... few persons from going to church. Mass is said in a low voice, during which the priest, or the rector, receives the promise of the wedded pair. With little exception, the ceremony is the same for all. Those who pay well are married at the high altar; the rector addresses to them a speech in which he exhorts them to live happily together; the beadles perform their duty; and the organist ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... saw that the time was come for action, and again the barons met in council. Before the high altar in the Abbey Church of St. Edmundsbury they swore that if the King sought to evade their demand for the laws and liberties of Henry I.'s charter, they would make war upon him until he pledged himself to confirm their rights in ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... saint. If we assume that the old choir terminated in a semicircular apse, projecting eastward beyond the aisles, we shall find that the tomb would be enclosed in such a position as to admit of the high altar being placed immediately over it. Assuming that the choir was not apsidal but square, we get the same result. The probability is that the end of the church erected or altered by Joceline was square, and that it projected two bays beyond the aisles, as at St. Andrews and other churches of ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... of old St. Anne's rung out a cheerful peal. It had been rebuilt and enlarged once, but it had a quaintly venerable aspect. And up the aisle the troop of white clad maidens walked reverently and knelt before the high altar where the candles were burning and there was an odor of incense beside the spice ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... had entered, and were engaged in offering up their orisons at the various altars. One woman, who had been in the market, making her purchases, entered the Cathedral, basket in hand, and, kneeling down on the steps in front of the high altar with her basket beside her, proceeded to tell her beads, and was soon deeply immersed in her prayers. A homeless cat was quietly prowling about, and, approaching the woman, began to smell at the contents of her basket. Evidently church mice are much the same all the world over and do not ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... by the low door leading from the cloister. Silence and gloom filled the building, raised more than a hundred and fifty years before on the foundations of a ruined Roman Temple by the great Margaritone. He traversed the Nave, and went and knelt in the Chapel behind the High Altar dedicated to San Michele, whose legend was painted in fresco on the wall. But the dim light of the lamp hanging from the vault was insufficient to show the Archangel fighting with Satan and weighing souls in the balance. ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... Rome and appealed to the pope, who not only protected him from his assailants, but made him the patriarch of the order he had founded. Only six months after his return, however, he died, and was buried before the high altar of the church he had erected in 1187. Whether he was indeed the founder of the Beguine houses has been called in question. Be that as it may, fifty years after his death fifteen hundred Beguines were living around St. Christopher's ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... like the high altar of a cathedral, rose beneath innumerable arches springing from columns, thick-set as Roman pillars, enamelled with vari-coloured bricks, set with mosaics, incrusted with lapis lazuli and sardonyx, in a palace like the basilica of an architecture at once Mussulman ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... you cannot persuade Miss Gresley to come to us next week?" said Lord Newhaven, strolling into the dining-room at Westhope Abbey, where Rachel and Dick were sitting at a little supper-table laid for two in front of the high altar. The dining-room had formerly been the chapel, and the carved stone altar still remained ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... curve of the corridor, Durtal came to a green baize door which he pushed open. He found himself in the side aisle of a nave ending in a semicircle, where there was a high altar. To the right and left two little recesses formed the arms or transept of a small cross. The centre aisle, forming a low nave, had chairs on either side, leaving a narrow space to ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... him prisoner in the field, but afterwards he released him to his great praise and commendation. For whereas he builded a church at Winchcombe, vpon the day of the dedication thereof, he led the Kentish king as then his prisoner, vp to the high altar, and there set him at libertie, declaring thereby a great ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... sounded along the arches; cowled figures knelt in the stalls of the choir; and on the steps of the high altar a priest in pontifical vestments ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... raising this new belfry for his brethren when the stern decree arrived that the bells should no more sound. And the hymn was no more to be chaunted in the Lady's chapel; and the candles were no more to be lit on the high altar; and the gate of the poor was to be closed for ever; and the wanderer was no more to ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... was Padre Felipe's sleeping apartment and the chapel vestry combined in one. There was a curtained doorway that gave access to the chapel itself; pushing aside the hangings, we could see the dim interior, empty except for the high altar set with tall candles, and a carven crucifix ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... been erected on the site of the high altar surmounted by a cross. It contained a few memorials, amongst the most touching of which were simple portraits of Arnauld, Le Maitre, De Saci, Quesnel, Nicole, Pascal, the Mère Angélique, the Mère Agnès, Jacqueline Pascal, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... the Stocks, in London, under a stone lying at my Lady Wyngar's pew dore, at the steppe comyng up to the chappel. Item. I bequeath to pore maids' mariages L13 6s. 8d; to every pore householder of this my parish, 4d. a pece to the sum of 40s. Item. I bequeath to the high altar of S. Nicolas Chapel L10 for an altar-cloth of velvet, with my name brotheryd thereupon, with a Wyng, and G and A and R closyd in a knot. Also, I wold that a subdeacon of whyte damask be made to the hyghe altar, with my name brotheryd, to syng in, on our Lady daies, in the honour of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... fire-kindling god. There was a wide margin between theory and practice, between academic dilletantism and a prosperous industrial life fostered and shielded by acts of Congress. It required courage for young men bred in the popular faith to turn their backs upon the high altar, so firmly planted, so blazing with lamps ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson |
